It used to be the shop every woman relied on. So where did Gap go so wrong?

From plain white T-shirts and jeans to sweatshirts, Gap used to be the first port of call for wardrobe basics. But sales have nose-dived, 200 stores worldwide are set to close over the next two years and the chief designer has been sacked. So, what’s gone wrong for the fashion store we used to love?

The blade has fallen. Another fashion grand fromage has been guillotined.

No, it’s not as high profile as John Galliano’s exit from Dior, but it’s still a big execution, indicative of the retail industry’s extreme case of nerves.

This week Gap, the giant U.S. clothing store that first opened its doors in San Francisco in 1969, announced it has sacked its chief designer, 44-year-old Patrick Robinson.

The reason was simple: a decline in sales had reached crisis point. Gap announced it was ‘taking the necessary steps to compete and win around the world’.

After the debacle earlier this year about an unpopular new logo (swiftly abandoned), this was even more bad news for a brand that was once unassailable.

But is Gap really that bad? And, if so, can it be salvaged?

Yesterday, I walked along a heaving Oxford Street towards Gap’s flagship London store. Along the route, the shop windows were a riot of colour blocking: this summer’s key trend.

Even Primark looked cheerful and inviting with lots of pink, blue and bright lemon — the precise colour of the Queen’s Royal Wedding outfit.

Sacked: Patrick Robinson lost his job as head designer for Gap after the freefall in sales reached crisis point

H&M looked cool and crisp, with a dazzling display of white, another key trend. Zara’s windows were sophisticated and feminine without being frilly.

And then I arrived at Gap. Oh dear. The only colour was in the wording on the window, which was in bright orange: ‘Summer reductions!’

The clothes on display were dreary — they reminded me of Camden Market circa 1972: a sea of boring denim. The shop itself was almost empty.

Gap certainly seems to have lost its way. It no longer does basics, which made its fortune, nor fashion-forward garments well.

The jeans are not only cheap looking, they are no longer cool. The white shirt, just under £30, is OK, and I liked the sleeveless white blouse, but why were they so horribly creased, as if they had been run over by a bus?

And why did neither have a hint of stretch? No woman wants to wear a shirt that doesn’t cling, but looks baggy and rumpled under a jacket.

A trench coat — though well-priced at £69.95 — was bulky, stiff and the colour of mud.

Everything was drab and depressing. The two floors of womenswear were too unisex, which might have worked in the Seventies, but just doesn’t cut it any more. Even female students want to look feminine and pretty.

I kept picking up dreadful checked rumpled shirts and sweatshirts, and wondering: is this for a man or a woman?

YeS, the basic denim jacket is OK, but women these days like it to be sexed up a little, like the cropped, metallic, denim biker by Diesel, £110, that is so cool and has been photographed so often by the glossies that it has a waiting list.

Why didn’t Gap do its own black, cropped, soft-leather biker jacket?

And herein lies the rub. The problem for the store is that even middle-aged, middle-market, middle-class women have become fashion literate. They are abreast of the key trends and, above all, want value for money.

Slim success: Mr Robinson had some successes, like the Premium Pant Collection, but Gap revenues have continued to suffer for six straight years

The woman shopper will do her homework, too — most likely on the internet — and will then make a beeline for exactly what she wants. And Gap’s crumpled linen-and-cotton-mix wide trousers the colour of a puddle with a drawstring waist just don’t cut it any more.

‘Is there any cashmere?’ I asked a young woman at the Gap cash desk (there was a row of ten tills, but only two were manned).

‘No. But Marks has some lovely cashmere in jewel colours,’ she replied. So, even the staff think Gap is lame.

Failing to inspire: Trademark khakis from 2007 mark the point at which Gap went into reverse

The chain was the first brand to sell bikinis in mix-and-match sizes. Today, the swimwear is ghastly: faded prints and awful colours such as mauve.

The lingerie is little better. I bought a plain black vest, £10, but the matching knickers, £5, were available only in small.

Nothing is in boxes — always a good idea for lingerie — but is merely piled on tables.

Have the head honchos at Gap never been to Marks & Spencer? Take the labelling. Gap’s knickers have no fewer than five bulky labels, while those clever clogs at M&S have printed the size and washing instructions on the waistband, so you don’t see or feel it. Worse, though, are the Gap accessories. Horrible wedges, gold and silver ballet flats, and patent courts.

And it’s all too expensive. For £79.95, you could buy far better in LK Bennett.

The bags are just dreadful: gold, silver and sequins with chains.

The ubiquitous leopard-print skinny scarf, a rip-off of the £600 Louis Vuitton version, is £19.95 —but smart girls know you can get it for a fiver in Accessorize.

Even the store’s scent, Stay, smells like fly spray.

As for the menswear, Gap is just plain boring. These days, if a man turns up for a date in a grey hoodie with those three giant letters on his front, he has only himself to blame if he is summarily dumped.

Gap’s more expensive sister, Banana Republic, does everything better than its poor relation, from tailoring for work to easy cashmere tanks and colourful silks.

Cos does colour, basics and even denim better — its waxed denim skating skirt, £59, and matching shirt, £39, were given a whole page in the latest issue of Elle magazine. Even New Look does a more fashionable, sub-Stella McCartney denim dress at a much better price — £26.99 — than the sorry offerings at Gap.

The store has faltered, too, when collaborating with high-end designers.

When, in 2006, it commissioned Roland Mouret, the man who gave us the red carpet Galaxy gown, to make a collection of dresses in natural fabrics and unfussy shapes at £75 a pop, the fashion press loved them, but the core customer baulked.

More recent collaborations, with Stella McCartney for children’s wear and Pierre Hardy for a range of vertiginous shoes, also found favour with the fashionistas, but connected less well with the ordinary Gap customer.

Yet it would be wrong to say that the store does nothing well any more. I like the basic black trousers in myriad fits — boot, straight, curvy, slim and cropped — at a reasonable £35.95. I also rate the simple olive shirtdress at £39.95.

The children’s wear and baby wear is good quality, and not over- embellished or cute.

But that is a short list for a big brand. That is why its crisis is truly the end of an era. The end of the uniform, of us all wanting to look the same, safe in a preppy brand that for decades could do no wrong.

Welcome to the age of individuality, when we want to imprint our own personality on our look, not be branded with an American logo that is now as unpopular as the Lib Dems.